


A Father's Blessing

by AuroraKant



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Kingdom Come (Comics)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Background Mar'i Grayson/Ibn al Xu'ffasch, Fluff, Gen, Hugs, Past Child Abuse, Ra's al Ghul was a Bad Parent, When You And Your Dad Never Talked About The Fact That You Are His Kid And Now You Are Thirty, YeetDC2020, but that is in the past, father-son bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:54:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24752755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraKant/pseuds/AuroraKant
Summary: Ibn had been dreading this meeting - and why shouldn't he? Bruce Wayne and Ibn al Xu'ffasch had barely anything to do with each other besides the fact that... well, the fact that Bruce Wayne was Ibn's father.And now the time to talk had come.
Relationships: Ibn al Xu'ffasch & Bruce Wayne, Ibn al Xu'ffasch/Mar'i Grayson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27
Collections: Gotham Square (Batfam Discord Fics)





	A Father's Blessing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gemini_Baby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemini_Baby/gifts).



> Hello!  
> The one magic way to make me write is to prompt me things it seems....  
> Welcome back to yet another round of Aurora Writes!  
> I have to admit that I have not read the Kingdom Comes comics myself, but I hope I got enough right for you to enjoy them still!  
> Bookmarks, Comments, Kudos and the Knowledge that you loved it make me happy! <3

Ibn touched his tie once again. He _knew_ it was perfectly tied. His ties were always perfectly tied. But this was a special occasion, and he wanted for everything to be perfect. This need for perfection was only natural, Ibn al Xu'ffasch was a professional after all.

There was no room for mistakes in his line of work and there was no room for the nervousness he felt thrumming in his veins. He was better than this.

Well, but this was special. Something else. 

Ibn was a master spy, a genius when it came to misdirection and lying, the best double agent the Justice League and the Mankind Liberation Front respectively had ever seen, and yet… and yet he couldn’t quell the anxiety and anticipation inside of him. He would meet his father today. No, he would meet Bruce Wayne today.

The two of them had never spend enough time together for them to become something resembling Father and Son.

And yet Ibn had requested Bruce’s presence in this restaurant. And yet he had asked Bruce to meet him in public for reasons that only barely had anything to do with work and were much closer related to something dear to Ibn’s heart. He had one of those, against popular belief. Mar’i liked to remind him of that.

He had been half an hour early to his dinner reservation – of course, he had been – but now he regretted that choice. Being early left him too much time to fidget. He could only scan the room so many times (twelve tables, six other patrons in the room, two waitresses, forty-five possible ways to access this table, seven possible exits) before one of the waitresses would think him a creep.

But finally, the bell above the entrance chimed and into the room stepped Bruce Wayne. The man in question was also at least ten minutes early. It was the hero and the spy thing to do – always be early, always act and don’t just react.

Bruce’s ice-blue eyes found Ibn immediately, the man redirecting his steps towards his table before the hostess had any chance to seat him. And even as an old man, even in his sleek exoskeleton, that made his steps slow and heavy, he commanded the room.

Ibn could feel himself stand up to greet him before he had even made any conscious choice.

“Bruce. Thank you for coming. Take a seat.”

Ibn could be charming if he wanted to, he could smile and make people at ease – but seeing Bruce, his father, for the first time in months had made him falter, his voice coming out clipped where it should have been smooth.

“Ibn.”

Bruce only nodded his head in an acknowledgement, thankfully taking the chair Ibn had pulled out for him. There was a tension in the air, one that Ibn was sure not only he himself felt. It didn’t go away when Ibn sat down again either.

Instead the silence became more stifling with each passing moment, Ibn finally the first one to break, uncomfortable in a way he hadn’t been since he had been a child in the League:

“Um, you are surely wondering why I asked you to come, well-“

“Can I get you something to drink? These are our menus and the specials for today include tuna steaks on a salad of green beans and shallots and fresh garden greens with a white wine sauce and cranberry chutney.”

Ibn hadn’t heard the waitress approach, and he could feel himself grow dangerously still in his efforts to suppress his shock at being surprised like this. Bruce send an inquiring glance in his direction, before turning to the waitress:

“Water for the both of us. Sparkling, please.”

His answer sent the woman away, the menus in the middle of their small dinner table untouched.

Bruce never learned how to read Ibn.

It was a weird thought to have, but Ibn had been caught in it. Mar’i knew how to read him perfectly, and she would have known that Ibn growing perfectly still was a sign of discomfort and stress. Even Talia – as complicated as their relationship was or had been – had been able to understand Ibn’s ticks and tricks on an instinctive level.

~~Ra’s never did. Or he hadn’t wanted to.~~

Bruce didn’t. Because they never got a chance to get to know each other like this.

“You wanted to say?”

This time around Bruce’s voice was the tinniest amount softer, and for the first time Ibn realized that maybe… that maybe Bruce had been nervous as well.

“Yes, I… While there are some papers regarding housing investments that I would like you to sign, the bigger reason for me being here…”

This time around Ibn saw the waitress approach before she had any chance to startle him. From the frozen smile on her face, he could guess that he wasn’t the only one feeling the tension in the room. Well, maybe Ibn would have already gotten a chance to make this conversation more bearable if she would only stop interrupting them. But that seemed to be a futile hope:

“Your water, sirs. Have you decided on a dinner, yet?”

Neither him nor Bruce had opened up the menus. And yet Ibn answered, in hopes of getting back to the topic at hand before he could chicken out:

“The tuna, please”

“I will take the greens. Doctor’s orders.”

There was a twinkle in Bruce’s eye when he winked at the waitress and sent her on her way, that Ibn had never seen before. He really didn’t know his father at all, did he?

“What I wanted to say…”

Why was Ibn’s heart beating so fast? What he was about to tell his fa- Bruce was no secret. Many of their friends already knew and yet… and yet it felt like the hardest thing he ever had to say, when he looked into this face that he knew from the mirror but not from his childhood.

“Mar’i and I are getting married.”

He had done it. He had said the words, he had asked Bruce to come for. And now that they had finally left his mouth they didn’t feel as big anymore. Or maybe it was the slight smile on Bruce’s face that helped ease the tension from Ibn’s shoulders:

“Oh, I know. Dick won’t shut up about it. I’m telling you, he is more anxious and excited for this than he was for his own wedding…”

A wave of feelings crashed into Ibn. So, Bruce had known. And he had nothing against it. And yet… the disappointment at not being the one to tell Bruce… it felt crushing. Crushing, in a way that Ibn hadn’t known he could be crushed. It only vaguely helped that Bruce continued talking:

“But that is not the question you wanted to ask is it? Since that wasn’t a question at all yet.”

For a moment Ibn wanted to hate Bruce, wanted to hate how easy all of this seemed for the man, how he could just talk without the fear and the anxiety thrumming in Ibn, but then he realized it would be fruitless. It would be like hating a dog for chasing its tail. Useless and not helpful to anyone. Least of all the dog.

Instead he answered Bruce, his voice small for someone like him, someone so used to commanding a room and an army:

“Actually, I wanted… I wanted to ask if you would be okay with attending the wedding as my father. My family. Since there is no one else who can fill my side of the ceremony hall besides my friends, and… and I might have some, but not that many, and…”

Ibn was rambling. Ibn al Xu'ffasch, businessman, double agent, heir to the League of Assassins, was rambling because the act of asking his literal father to attend his wedding was such a herculean task, that he couldn’t concentrate on his carefully learned rhetoric anymore.

But his words didn’t only seem to shock himself, Bruce had stopped raising his glass of water halfway on its path the moment Ibn had said the word ‘father’. Oh, yeah, they never really had _that_ conversation, had they? 

Silence fell over the table once again, only this time Ibn feared it was here to stay. Not even the delivery of their food eased the tension, every bite dragging Ibn further and further down. It tasted like ash, which was rather sad, since Ibn had chosen this restaurant for its cuisine as well as for its location.

This had been a bad idea. A horrible one. He shouldn’t have listened to Mar’i. He was the groom, nobody cared if his father attended or not. Or… well, if his father attended as his _father_ and not Mar’s granddad.

Ibn would not even dare to think about the weirdness of their family – or how the family tree would look once Mar’i and he had finally signed the legal papers that would bind them together. Forever.

“I…”

Bruce’s voice broke Ibn’s stare away from the picked-apart fish on his plate, instead forcing him to look at Bruce once again, the man’s face at least a decade older than it had been minutes earlier:

“I would be honored, Ibn, to attend as the groom’s father.”

For a moment everything stopped. Ibn frantically searched Bruce’s face for a sign of deceit or for a trick hidden away, but only honest truth stared back at him. But how could Ibn be sure? He didn’t know his father’s tells. He didn’t know what Bruce did when he lied and what he said when he spoke the truth.

“Really?”

“Yes. I know… I know I have rarely given you reasons to believe in me in the past, but… I would love to take this first step. To _become_ your father, instead of just being it.”

Ibn must have slipped into a different universe, because whatever was currently happening couldn’t actually be real. Some part of him had been absolutely sure that Bruce would deny him the honor of claiming Bruce Wayne as his father. He had been _sure_ that he would leave the restaurant with crushed hopes and tired steps.

“Are you sure? Are you truly sure that you want to be officially associated with Ibn al Xu'ffasch, a man not known for the good he did but the pain he helped create?”

Why couldn’t he just shut up? Bruce had offered Ibn something he had always wanted – or something he had wanted from the moment he realized that other people had loving families, loving _dads_. And yet, here he was, trying to sabotage his one chance at a father he was ever going to get.

But Bruce didn’t seem derailed by Ibn’s rather crude attempts to tear this flicker of hope down, his eyes old and sad, when he spoke next:

“Yes. Because I am more than proud of the good you brought. And… and I think I never told you that. I only ever acknowledged your existence in the face of others, but I think I never said it to you: Ibn, you are my son. And I love you as such.”

Ibn couldn’t breathe.

He must look like a fish, stranded on a beach made out of emotions he hadn’t known he was capable of feeling, his mouth open, his eyes wide.

“Ibn?”

There… there were tears running down his face. And Ibn didn’t know what to do next.

Ra’s had never been proud of him, had never told him he loved him. Ra’s had only ever sewn pain. Talia had done her best, but it had never been enough… and after the League Ibn had made sure that no one else would ever use his longing for parental approval against him.

(It hadn’t worked, of course, Ibn readily helping Bruce the moment the man asked, in the hopes of _something_ he couldn’t name)

And now… and now Bruce had said those words, had acknowledged him, had told him that he was proud.

What did you do when you finally found that treasure chest at the end of a journey you had believed to be damned?

Ibn cried, apparently.

And suddenly he wasn’t crying alone anymore. Frail, yet strong arms encircled his form, pressing him against a body Ibn wished he knew better. Bruce was hugging him, the old man having left his chair behind, so he could care for a child he had never cared for before.

“I am sorry I have never told you before. I am sorry for all those years we worked together, without me stepping up. I am truly sorry, Ibn, and I am proud.”

“I am sorry as well… Father”

The word felt unfamiliar on his tongue, but he liked the way it sounded. It sounded like belonging, like family, like home. It sounded different than _Mar’I_ did, when Ibn whispered the name into her ear, but with just as many positive emotions tied to it.

Maybe Bruce truly could become Ibn’s _father_.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, nothing at all. And just know, that there is nothing that would make me happier than to be the groom’s father at the wedding of the century.”

A small laugh escaped Ibn. Apparently, his father had a shred of humor buried inside of him. Ibn couldn’t wait to get to know him better – and to find out what else was hidden under the tough exterior and the exoskeleton.

People were staring, their food was getting cold, and Ibn couldn’t care less – he was enjoying the first ever hug he and his father shared at the age of thirty-one.


End file.
